[Tlhingan-hol] Klingon Word of the Day: Doq 'ej wovbe'

[qurgh lungqIj]

On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 9:01 PM, Rohan Fenwick - QeS 'utlh
<qeslagh at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I was going to keep my trap shut, but I'm glad someone else has raised this.
> With all due respect to qurgh, and not wanting to sound like a pedantic old
> curmudgeon ('coz it's led to fiery confrontation before and I don't want
> that), Doq 'ej wovbe' isn't a verb;

But "be brown" is a verb and the phrase is made up of two verbs. This
entry is primarily for English speakers searching for relevant words
in my database, so if they search for "brown" they get an example of
how to say brown instead of getting nothing. If it was listed as a
noun they, not knowing how Klingon works, would just throw in <Doq 'ej
wovbe'> thinking it's a complete noun phrase for brown (the way nagh
beQ is a phrase for a "painting"), it's also not chuvmey, so it's
listed a verb because it's a "verb phrase" that has a known meaning
and the verb parts can be conjugated normally (you could say jIDoq 'ej
jIwovbe').

As an advanced speaker of the language, you already know everything
there is to know about the phrase, so it has no negative impact on you
and others at your level when you see it. However, this "Word of the
Day" goes out to far more beginner speakers and those with a passing
interest in Klingon than it does to advanced speakers, so it's
tailored to give them the most information without overwhelming them.
If you can think of another way to share the Klingon phrase that means
"to be brown" in the same amount of space (140 chars, as it's sent
over twitter too), then I'm more than willing to reevaluate this
entry.

qurgh